Copyright The New York Times
This was the game the NFL needed from the Buffalo Bills at home against the Kansas City Chiefs, a mostly impressive victory laced with just enough uncertainty about what it means for the future. The Chiefs, Bills and Baltimore Ravens entered this season as consensus favorites in the AFC, but it’s been an adventure. With a combined 14-11 record, these three powers have more total defeats through Week 9 than in any season since 2018, when Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen were rookies and Patrick Mahomes was a first-year starter. That’s a huge drop from their combined 21-5 record through Week 9 last season, opening the door for emerging AFC contenders to think bigger. The Pick Six column revisits the AFC as the 2025 regular season’s chronological midpoint arrives Tuesday. How are you feeling about the Chiefs, Bills and Ravens? What about the Denver Broncos, Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots and Los Angeles Chargers? NFL execs weigh in to help decipher a murky picture. The full Pick Six menu: • Re-stacking AFC contenders • Will Tucker Kraft’s injury doom Pack? • Key J.J. McCarthy takeaway • Record kick only part of story • Bob Trumpy’s critical call • Two-minute drill: Bears’ 576 1. The Bills nearly blew out the Chiefs on Sunday, then held on to win by a touchdown. What does it mean? Before the season, The Athletic’s NFL projection model gave Baltimore, Buffalo and Kansas City roughly the same chance to reach the Super Bowl, about 22-23 percent per team. Sunday night, that model showed Indianapolis, New England, Kansas City and Buffalo with roughly equal chances (17-20 percent), with Baltimore, the Chargers and Denver around 7-8 percent. Jacksonville and Pittsburgh were both below 3 percent. Those figures will shift Monday as the model refreshes with injury and other statistical data more robust than game outcomes, but the bigger picture is clear. What once was a three-team race is now complicated, even if execs around the league still see Kansas City and Buffalo as the favorites. "Buffalo is not impressive talent-wise, but they are very well-coached," an exec from a Bills opponent said. "My gut just tells me that Buffalo is going to break through this year. They have been pretty unlucky to lose games three of the past four years against the Chiefs (in the playoffs). Those could have gone either way. Eventually, those bounce the other way, so I think they will be fine." A Bills defense that ranked 22nd in EPA per play through Week 6 served notice that it still has the capacity to dominate against one of the NFL's hottest offenses. The Chiefs had been riding a Patrick Mahomes-era record six consecutive games with at least +7.0 EPA. "I would want a real pass rusher if I were Buffalo," the exec added. "They probably could not have afforded this, but Micah Parsons to the Bills would have been a 'holy s---' moment." Parsons might as well have been out there for the Bills in Week 9. Before Sunday, Kansas City scoring 44 points on the Bills seemed more likely than Buffalo holding Mahomes to a 44 percent completion rate. It was the first time in 142 total starts that the two-time MVP failed to complete half his passes. That was huge for Buffalo, which has won the teams' past five regular-season meetings. But when the Chiefs were converting fourth-and-17 in a fourth quarter that became uncomfortably frantic for the Bills, Kansas City's playoff dominance (4-0 in the Mahomes era) came to mind. "Buffalo wants to get into a designer coverage (on fourth-and-17), and all the DBs are yelling and pointing at each other, so they have to call timeout," a coach who watched the game said. "Buffalo is more stressed out about fourth-and-17 than K.C. was!" The Bills called another defensive timeout with 4:32 left when they had trouble lining up. And when Buffalo missed a 52-yard field goal with 22 seconds left, visions of 13 seconds were warming up. "When you see that guy (Mahomes) putting that helmet on and walking back onto the field with 22 seconds, that is a nightmare for Buffalo," the coach said. "He’s getting (one throw) in the end zone (to Tyquan Thornton) and another to the plus-5, with (one hitting) their hands. It's unbelievable. They're the best team. If Buffalo plays K.C. at a neutral site or at Arrowhead, they don't win this game." The outcome Sunday could require the 5-4 Chiefs to play the next meeting in Buffalo as well, although Kansas City, currently eighth in the AFC, wouldn't even qualify for the playoffs at present. Not that anyone expects the Chiefs to miss the postseason. "I had Kansas City as the clear best team heading into Sunday, with Buffalo second but being worse than last year because of the average receivers and secondary," another exec said. "Baltimore has just seemed kind of broken, like an implosion waiting to happen." Another exec thought the Ravens — who routed Miami on Thursday night in Lamar Jackson's return from a hamstring injury — could rally with their top two tight ends and fullback Patrick Ricard finally healthy together. But questions on defense linger. Indy, Denver and New England are all 7-2 and atop the AFC. A deep dive into the Colts this past week showed a team with strong lines, a nice mix of tight ends led by rookie Tyler Warren, a seemingly possessed running back in Jonathan Taylor and a well-schemed offense. It also revealed a dearth of elite plays from new quarterback Daniel Jones, who had been more solid than spectacular until Sunday, when he suffered five turnovers and was neither. Jones and the Colts fell apart in Pittsburgh against a previously struggling Steelers defense. The Broncos, meanwhile, are riding one of the least convincing six-game winning streaks in recent memory. Their 55-point margin of victory during the streak is tied for 47th out of 56 six-game winning streaks since 2000, per TruMedia. That 55-point margin includes four games decided by a total of 10 points, with three of those against the 1-7 Jets, 2-7 Giants and 3-5 Texans, who played much of their 18-15 loss to Denver on Sunday without quarterback C.J. Stroud. "I think Denver's a good team, but I see a lot of days that the quarterback (Bo Nix) still holds them back," an evaluator said. "Defense is pretty good, offensive scheme is good. Nix has been inconsistent from the pocket in processing. He'll make a boneheaded throw every now and then. Really, the accuracy is the one thing that bothers me with him. It's just inconsistent." Execs thought the Chargers had a shot if they could avoid more injuries to their offensive line, but with Joe Alt suffering a potentially serious ankle injury Sunday, those bets are off. New England, anyone? "I was so wrong about them," another exec said of the Patriots. "I know part of it is the schedule, but they look the part. Their run defense has been really good, and if I'm buying stock in quarterbacks, give me all the Drake Maye stock there is. It's not like he's throwing to (Jordan) Addison and (Justin) Jefferson or A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith." We might instinctively put a cap on how far teams other than Kansas City and Buffalo might advance. Should we? "It is hard to say what someone's limit is," one of the execs said. "The freaking Commanders got to the championship game (in the NFC) last year, so anybody can go win one game." Indy's superior play on both lines could give the Colts an edge against the Buffalo and Kansas City defenses. That was a harder case to make after Sunday. "My biggest takeaway (from Week 9) is what happened to Indy," another exec said. "It feels like Pittsburgh was on the edge coming off Sunday night, and here comes this great Indy offense, and they got after Daniel Jones and hit him a bunch. It just throws it all up in the air." 2. Did the Packers' championship chances fade when the medical staff carted tight end Tucker Kraft to the locker room? Packers fans and Kraft himself had reason to wince Sunday when medical personnel carted the third-year tight end to the locker room with a knee injury during a rough Green Bay performance at home against Carolina. The Panthers' last-second field goal handed Green Bay a 16-13 defeat, but losing Kraft could be costlier than any single-game outcome on the scoreboard. "It doesn't look good," coach Matt LaFleur said afterward. Five days ago, we declared the Packers' offense Super Bowl worthy. "For that," I wrote in the Scoop City newsletter, "they can thank Tucker Kraft's emergence most." Flip through Kraft's receptions this season and you'll see play after play where he's running over, through and past defenders for huge gains after the catch. Eleven of his 30 receptions over the Packers' first seven games featured at least 15 yards after the catch. No other tight end has more than eight such catches through seven games since at least 2007, the earliest year for which YAC data is available via TruMedia. It doesn't get much better among all-time dynamic receiving tight ends than prime Gronk, prime Kelce and prime Kittle. For Kraft to be outpacing those guys by so much speaks loudly as to what he brought to the offense. He released on screens with great proficiency, caught seam balls downfield, pushed aside smaller defenders, outran slower ones and was a player whom LaFleur could scheme open. "Huge loss," a coach from another team said. "He's running simple routes, but he does it all fundamentally sound, and then I love the compete level to get upfield. He's a throwback because he never runs out of bounds, same as Gronk. He wants to attack the tacklers, the DBs, the linebackers. He always gets north, has deceptive speed, can turn it on and beat you to the pylon like he did against Pittsburgh." Kraft, who turns 25 today and is also a strong blocker, had given the Packers a highly talented young tight end for the first time since Jermichael Finley was catching passes from Aaron Rodgers (2008-13). Twelve years ago last month, a spinal-cord injury ended Finley's career. Jimmy Graham and others manned the position capably over the subsequent years, but Kraft was on another level. His 469 yards and 12 explosive receptions (gains of 15-plus) entering Week 9 led all Green Bay tight ends through seven games since at least 2000, per TruMedia. 3. The Vikings put the ball in J.J. McCarthy's hands and trusted him to deliver the knockout blow to beat Detroit. That was the top takeaway from a game in which he completed only 14 passes. What's your play call on third-and-5 from your own 28-yard line while protecting a late 27-24 lead at Detroit with a quarterback making his third career start? The Lions had one timeout remaining with 1:41 on the game clock when Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell sent in the play to McCarthy. The result: a bold back-shoulder ball traveling 16 yards past the line of scrimmage to Jalen Nailor for a victory Minnesota badly needed after weeks of uncertainty surrounding the viability of the Vikings' QB plan. "This was not the boot pass where they pick someone off the line and he blocked someone for three seconds and released, was wide open, caught it and dove over the line to gain," an exec from another team said. "This was a passing formation where they had to make a difficult throw, when the other team knows you are going to throw." The boldness of the play seemed remarkable under the circumstances, partly because McCarthy had completed only 13 passes all game and was playing for the first time in 49 days. These were good reasons to research what other teams have done when: • Leading by no more than one score • Having 2:00 to 1:00 on the game clock • Facing third-and-3 or longer • Possessing the ball at their own 40-yard line or worse • Facing an opponent with one timeout remaining The 64 teams facing those situations over the past 15 years have passed 56 percent of the time, with only 39 percent of those throws traveling to the first-down marker or past it, per TruMedia. The Vikings became only the third team over that span to complete a pass traveling longer than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage for a first-down conversion in that situation. Seattle did it with prime Russell Wilson against Philadelphia in a playoff game after the 2019 season. Indianapolis did it with veteran Matt Hasselbeck during a victory over Houston in 2015. This was the most significant early step forward for McCarthy during a season in which he has yet to enjoy a solid statistical game. He's the 12th first-round quarterback since 2000 to finish each of his first three starts with no better than -0.1 EPA per pass play in any of them, per TruMedia. Cam Ward, Caleb Williams, Bryce Young, Zach Wilson, Dwayne Haskins, Mitch Trubisky, Jared Goff, Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, Eli Manning and David Carr are also on that list. But McCarthy and the Vikings got what they needed most Sunday: a victory over a division rival on the road, with a signature play to cap it off. 4. Jacksonville's Cam Little set an NFL record with a 68-yard field goal against the Raiders, which invites a fascinating (to me) study on kicking. Niners fans will like what they see. Little boomed a 70-yard field goal through the uprights during preseason, so he remains the favorite to break that barrier when the stats actually count. His 68-yarder in the second quarter of a 30-29 overtime victory at Las Vegas surpassed the record Justin Tucker set (66 yards) in 2021. While setting the record was surely thrilling for Little, the milestone felt more inevitable than transformational. Little or someone else is going to kick one longer than that, probably sooner than later. I'm more interested in kicking imbalances and how they fluctuate from year to year, creating hugely influential swings that sometimes do not get enough attention. The value one team's kicker provides is only half of the equation. How that production compares to the value the opposing teams' kickers provide is what creates glaring differentials over time. The San Francisco 49ers are a prime example. Eddy Piñeiro, the kicker they signed upon releasing Jake Moody after Week 1, has made all 19 tries this season. The 49ers' opponents have been missing much more frequently than last season, including from 45 yards Sunday in a 34-24 San Francisco victory over the Giants. Piñeiro drilled a 54-yarder for a 17-7 lead with 1:55 left before halftime Sunday. On the Niners' next possession, the Giants forced a turnover to take possession at the San Francisco 27-yard line with 33 seconds until halftime, only to have Graham Gano miss from 45 yards. Piñeiro's long make was worth 2.3 EPA, the same amount Gano's miss cost the Giants. That was effectively a 4.6-point swing that will never appear in a box score. The difference in EPA on the 49ers' kicks and those for their opponents has averaged 2.8 EPA per game. The game-level difference was large enough to account for final-score differentials in victories over the Rams, Saints and Cardinals. The table below breaks out the totals for the 49ers in each game this season. The 49ers have all sorts of injuries and are scuffling to win every week. Every point matters for them this season, which is why their favorable EPA differential on field goals is so helpful. Their kicks have added 13.1 points above expectation. Their opponents' kicks have lost 11.3 to expectation. The 24.4-point differential relative to their opponents works out to 2.8 EPA per game, tied for the second-best differential in the league. On paper, it's the difference between 6-3 and 3-6 for San Francisco. The table below ranks all 32 teams by per-game EPA differential on field goals this season. Even with Little's kick Sunday, the Jaguars are below average, in part because Little has two misses (one against San Francisco) from 47 yards. The Atlanta Falcons rank 31st even without the missed extra point that kept them from tying the game late in a one-point loss to New England on Sunday (extra points are not included in the field goal data). 5. Former Cincinnati Bengals tight end and longtime NBC color commentator Bob Trumpy died at age 80. His most important call was not in the booth. Trumpy's death resonated with longtime NFL fans who remember his distinct voice and sometimes biting commentary as a color analyst alongside Sam Nover, Bob Costas, Don Criqui, Dick Enberg, Tom Hammond and Charlie Jones from 1978 to 1997. Trumpy called four Super Bowls, three Olympics and three Ryder Cups, but his most important call, by far, was unscripted. On Nov. 10, 1983, when Trumpy was hosting his "Sports Talk" radio show on WLW in Cincinnati, a despondent caller threatened suicide on the air. Trumpy kept the woman on the line for 2 1/2 hours, offering comfort while authorities tried to locate her. The ordeal was so emotionally taxing, Trumpy collapsed in tears when the call ended. His wife met him at the station, and they left together, shaken. The woman said she had been drinking and that her husband had beaten her. She referenced a college-aged son and offered the son's first name on the air. "It would be a shame for you to check out by yourself when you like people so much," Trumpy told the woman on the air, per an Associated Press report at the time. "This is a cry for help, and I'm not going to let that go unheard." The woman eventually put her son on the line to speak with Trumpy, who was able to get their phone number and address. Authorities reached the woman before she could harm herself. They lauded Trumpy for his empathetic treatment of her and overall handling of the situation. In the broadcast booth, Trumpy's years with Criqui from 1984 to '88 and with Enberg on NBC's No. 1 crew from 1992 to '95, when Trumpy succeeded Merlin Olsen, put him on the call for AFC games when John Elway was in his prime. Trumpy called Cleveland's double-overtime playoff victory over the Jets in the 1986 divisional round, the Cowboys' 52-17 Super Bowl rout over the Bills and the Chargers' upset victory over the Steelers in the AFC title game after the 1994 season. 6. Two-minute drill: Bears' 576 yards on Bengals recall ... Vince Evans? When former Bears quarterback Justin Fields and his New York Jets gained 502 yards against Cincinnati last week, the bar was set for Caleb Williams and the current Bears, who visited the Bengals on Sunday. If Chicago's offense struggled, the results would feed into swirling concerns over Williams' development in his second season and first with new coach Ben Johnson. Consider the bar reset after Chicago gained 576 yards in its 47-42 victory, the sixth-highest yardage total in the 1,531-game history of the Bears, counting playoffs. The team hadn't amassed that many yards since gaining 594 with Vince Evans behind center in a 61-7 victory that knocked Green Bay from the 1980 playoff race. Evans, like Williams, was an escape artist early in his career. He rushed for 306 yards and eight touchdowns during that 1980 season. But Evans never became a consistent passer over a long period. Williams continued to play off-schedule in the passing game Sunday. He averaged 3.6 seconds to throw or sack, the second highest for any quarterback in a game this season (3.61 was the high, by Jaxson Dart last week). Williams owns two of the four highest totals this season. But he was notably right on time with a seam ball to rookie tight end Colston Loveland for the winning 58-yard touchdown pass with 17 seconds remaining. "He threw it on time, over the seam defender, laid it right in there — an NFL quarterback play," a coach from another team said. "People will overreact, saying what an amazing throw it was, even though (Ryan) Fitzpatrick makes it. You catch it, hit your back foot and throw the seam. The key is, he played the offense on time like the coach wants, which has been tough getting him to do." This was a huge win for the 5-3 Bears, if for no other reason than it spared the team from what nearly became a horrific defeat. They are now two games above .500 entering Week 10 for the first time since the 2018 team was also 5-3 at that point (that team finished 12-4). Yes, Sunday's victory was against the Bengals, who have now allowed at least 500 yards to three opponents this season, matching a dubious league record for the first nine games of a season (the 2018 Bengals are also on that list). But the Bears could not control the schedule. They could control the 576 yards part. And every yard was necessary with Cincinnati backup Joe Flacco passing for 470 yards and four touchdowns. The 576 yards included 283 on the ground, most for the Bears in a game since Walter Payton (155), Matt Suhey (48), Jim McMahon (45) and Rusty Lisch (31) combined for most of the Bears' 283 in a 1984 game against Dallas, a game Mike Ditka's Bears somehow lost to Ditka's mentor, Tom Landry. • Seattle's dominance: The Seahawks' 38-14 victory at Washington shined light on just how differently these two rosters are constructed. It's a fascinating contrast because both teams' coaches were candidates for both jobs in January 2024. Dan Quinn, who won a Super Bowl as the Seahawks' defensive coordinator after the 2013 season, was an early favorite to succeed Pete Carroll in Seattle before the Seahawks hired Mike Macdonald instead — after the Commanders reportedly offered Macdonald their job. When Macdonald chose Seattle, Washington hired Quinn. In Washington, Quinn and general manager Adam Peters turned over much of the roster, filling both sides of the ball with older players in an effort to win quickly with a talented young QB in Jayden Daniels. They needed to change the culture, and they succeeded beyond outside expectations, with Washington reaching the NFC title game. But the Seahawks are better positioned for longer-term success, while the Commanders will need to overhaul the NFL's oldest roster. "Seattle won 10 games last season, and Washington won 12 — pretty close," an exec from another team said. "The Commanders ran it back, which is tempting but rarely works, especially when you have an older team. What does (Seattle GM John) Schneider do? He trades his quarterback (Geno Smith), he trades their receiver (DK) Metcalf, he uses the picks to turn the team over, and there you have it. Seattle is in much better position." One small example: Washington traded a 2025 fifth-round pick to San Francisco for 29-year-old receiver Deebo Samuel. Seattle used a 2025 fifth-rounder for receiver Tory Horton, who caught two of Sam Darnold's four touchdown passes Sunday night. • Quinn's decision: Leaving Jayden Daniels in the game while trailing Seattle 38-7 in the fourth quarter proved costly and will count as a strike against Quinn for much of the public after Daniels suffered a gruesome dislocation of his non-throwing elbow. This was the sixth time over the past five regular seasons that a team trailing by exactly 31 points took possession with between 13:00 and 12:00 remaining in regulation, per TruMedia. In the other five cases, coaches for the trailing teams did not make quarterback changes for that drive, including when Sean Payton left Nix in the game in a 41-10 loss to Baltimore last season. None of that figures to matter much for Quinn in Washington, where memories of then-coach Mike Shanahan sticking with a hobbled Robert Griffin III, who suffered a serious knee injury in another game against Seattle, are part of the landscape. Quinn has some damage control to do in the short term. Longer term, the Commanders must figure out how they want to build around Daniels beyond this season. That was always going to be the case, in my view, but the way this game played out brought it into focus much more abruptly for Washington. Running it back yet another season with the NFL's oldest roster is not a viable option. Perhaps a reshaping will begin before Tuesday’s trade deadline. • Denting Dart: Officials flagged the 49ers' Tatum Bethune for a hard hit to the head when the linebacker slammed into New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart in the third quarter Sunday. Even if the call was correct, Dart invited the potential for injury by failing to protect himself. It's been a recurring theme for the otherwise promising rookie. Also in this 34-24 Giants defeat, Dart took a hit near the sideline when he could have gotten out of bounds. On another play, he rolled left and held the ball, unaware a defender was about to blast him from behind. Dart also lowered his shoulder against a defender while gaining a single yard on second down. The good news: Dart set a season low against the 49ers with 11 plays that were either designed rushes, scrambles, sacks or hits on non-sacks. He still ranks second to Justin Fields among qualifying quarterbacks in the rate of non-handoff plays resulting in one of those risk-enhancing outcomes. Unlike the Ravens' Jackson, who ranks third on that list at 31 percent this season, Dart is not slippery in those situations. Dart is going to be the Giants' starting quarterback this season and in the future. The Giants will need to invest in a solid backup under the assumption that Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston will not return to the team in 2026. • Stump the ex-referee: CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore, who officiated in 235 games, including 187 as a referee, suggested on the Chiefs-Bills broadcast that officials might review a penalty for intentional grounding because replays showed Patrick Mahomes' pass had been tipped by a defender. Referee Carl Cheffers, working his 404th NFL game, including 279th as a referee, consulted with Chiefs coach Andy Reid and members of the officiating crew before explaining that no aspect of the play was reviewable. Steratore, an NFL referee from 2006 to '17, said he'd never seen such a situation in three decades of officiating, and that he wished the play could be reviewed if, in fact, the play could not be. The uncertainty could reflect poorly on a rules expert, but the bigger takeaway, in my view, is that so many situations that are possible never come to mind until they arise under the bright lights with millions watching. Rulebooks and casebooks keep getting thicker. The league keeps putting more responsibilities on referees and replay officials. But every situation cannot be anticipated. • Honor thyselves: If you were an NFL team owner, would you put yourself in the team's ring of fame or equivalent? If you did, would anyone in the organization object? Rich and powerful people sometimes have a difficult time getting honest feedback from the people around them, who fear for their livelihoods. (I would not know this from personal experience). No one in an NFL building is going to raise an objection when team brass decides to honor team ownership. We noticed last season when the Atlanta Falcons placed their owner, Arthur Blank, in the team's ring of honor. The Houston Texans followed Sunday when they placed Janice McNair, wife of late team founder Bob McNair (who was already in the ring of honor), in theirs.
